ﻻ يوجد ملخص باللغة العربية
General microscopic mechanism of ferroelectric ordering in chiral smectic C* liquid crystals is considered. It is shown that if the mesogenic molecules have a sufficiently low symmetry, the spontaneous polarization is proportional to one of the biaxial vector order parameters of the smectic C phase. This order parameter may be determined by intermolecular interactions which are not sensitive to molecular chirality. At the same time, the polarization is also proportional to a pseudoscalar parameter which vanishes if the molecules are nonchiral. The general statistical theory of ferroelectric ordering is illustrated by two particular models. The first model is based on electrostatic quadrupole-quadrupole interactions, and it enables one to obtain explicit analytical expressions for the spontaneous polarization. In the second model, the molecular chirality and polarity are determined by a pair of off-center nonparallel dipoles. For this case, the spontaneous polarization is calculated numerically as a function of temperature. The theory provides a more general interpretation of the previous approaches including the classical Boulder model.
We develop a theory of Smectic A - Smectic C phase transition with anomalously weak smectic layer contraction. We construct a phenomenological description of this transition by generalizing the Chen-Lubensky model. Using a mean-field molecular model,
We study the topology of smectic defects in two and three dimensions. We give a topological classification of smectic point defects and disclination lines in three dimensions. In addition we describe the combination rules for smectic point defects in
We show that a generalized Landau theory for the smectic A and C phases exhibits a biaxiality induced AC tricritical point. Proximity to this tricritical point depends on the degree of orientational order in the system; for sufficiently large orienta
Liquid crystals offer many unique opportunities to study various phase transitions with continuous symmetry in the presence of quenched random disorder (QRD). The QRD arises from the presence of porous solids in the form of a random gel network. Expe
We analyze the transverse intersubstrate pseudo-Casimir force, arising as a result of thermal fluctuations of the liquid crystalline layers of a smectic-A film confined between two planar substrates in a bookshelf geometry, in which the equidistant s